


I have no use for rings of gold, I care not for your poetry

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Sister-Sister Relationship, awkward but sweet first times, learning to be nobility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:42:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: One day, Gendry Waters was a bastard living in Flea Bottom. The next, he's on a boat north with the strange highborn girl who's been popping in an out of his shop for a few years. And they're betrothed to be married, he's in line for the throne, and more than a few people might want him dead.He's really not sure how any of this happened.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell (minor)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 404





	1. Chapter 1

_Arya hated King’s Landing. It was hot, crowded, smelly and full of idiots. Outside the Red Keep was nearly as bad as within._

_It wouldn’t have been so bad if she weren’t so lonely. King Robert had wanted to make a match with Sansa and his odious oldest son Joffrey. He had been so disappointed to discover that Sansa had been promised to Willas Tyrell and had left for Highgarden a scarce few moons before. Arya had never gotten along with her sister, but she still missed her. At least her ravens indicated that she was enjoying herself._

_Mother and Bran were supposed to come with them, but then Bran had fallen. Arya couldn’t get the image of her younger brother, pale and small and broken from her mind. He hadn’t even woken up before they’d left Winterfell, though Mother had sent a raven that he had woken and was healing, though Maester Luwin indicated he would never walk again._

_Now she was alone with her father in the capital. She’s two and ten and the Red Keep holds very little appeal for her. Joffrey’s awful, and she spends much of her time avoiding him. Tommen and Myrcella are nice enough, but not of much interest to her. So, Arya begins seeking her entertainment in other places._

_Namely, outside of the Red Keep’s walls._

_That’s how she meets the smith._  
  
**

“Can you fix it?”

Gendry looked up at the girl holding the tiny sword. Small, thin, dark haired, gray eyed, not quite five and ten years old. Not terribly remarkable except for the sword. Castle forged steel it was. She’d let him look it over many times in the nearly three years she’d been incessantly hanging around his shop. 

Right now it’s in two pieces.

Gendry raises an eyebrow.

“How’d you manage that?”

Arya shrugs. 

“Don’t know really. I was practicing after a lesson with Syrio and it just came apart.”

Gendry takes the pieces and examines it. The pommels just come apart from the rest of the hilt, it should be an easy fix. 

“I can do it,” he pauses, “Six coppers.”

Arya sputters, but reaches into her purse. She’d had to sneak the coins, but figures no one should miss enough for a patch job. 

“Really think you ought to do it on the house, for services rendered.”

Gendry snorts. 

“I’m afraid the work of this smith requires coin payment, milady,”

He loves watching her ears go red with anger when he calls her that. It is a reflex, no matter how many times she tells him to call her Arya, but he knows it’s safer if he doesn’t fight the reflex.

Services rendered. She’d been saying that ever since she chased down that one snot nosed brat who’d stolen his helm that time. Kid was no more than eight, but she’d carried him right back down and made him give it back.

Arya studies him as he begins to work. He didn’t bother telling her to leave and come back, she would wait however long it took. She was still looking at him oddly when he finishes. 

“What?”

Her head is cocked. 

“Are you ill? Go off with another fancy girl in an alehouse last night? You’re acting weird.”

Gendry exhales. He shouldn’t have told her about that woman anyway, but she was the one who slapped him back to reality after coming to in the alley behind the shop with his bag of coins stolen and a nasty bump on his head. That was what he got for assuming a fancy girl like that would ever want him.

He wishes Arya wasn’t such a good listener, it was really inappropriate for him to be talking to a highborn girl like her so much anyway. It was probably just as inappropriate for her to be hanging around in a blacksmith’s shop and carrying a sword. 

“No, just wondering when I’m going to get more work. Mott just finished up that big commission he’s been doing, so I won’t be having to help every single other person who comes in now.”

The answer apparently satisfies Arya who sits only fidgeting a bit until he’s finished. Then she passes Needle back to her, she reluctantly counts out his coins and they part ways for the day. 

She’ll be back. She always is. 

And once he finishes up the rest of his morning work, he eats the dry bread and hard cheese he’d brought for lunch and goes to seek out Mott to deliver that commission for him. 

“I really have to go all the way up to the Red Keep?” he asked, shaking his head. Leave it to a highborn to not be willing to come down even for a few minutes to pick up something he’d purchased. 

Mott nodded. 

“Use the craftsman’s entrance, and wait for the Hand of the King, he will pay you and you can be on your way.”

The hand of the king? Why on earth would he be the one receiving a delivery? Gendry muses on this as he leaves Flea Bottom. 

He’d met Ned Stark just once, all those years ago. Meeting Arya he’d been able to see the resemblance easy enough. He’d thought he seemed a good enough man, and Arya always spoke highly of her father, so he’s not too worried about it. 

The Red Keep looks as strange close up as it does from the other parts of the city, and as strange as it sounded in Arya’s stories. Gendry’s surprised to discover that the stench of the city stretches all the way up here. 

He doesn’t wait long, but when Lord Stark arrives, the whole encounter becomes a blur. He doesn’t even look at the sword, not really. He does look at Gendry however, appraisingly, but not quite like you would appraise a side of beef. 

He barely has time to wonder what’s up when the goddamn King of the seven kingdoms pops up, and who is definitely appraising him like a side of beef. 

“You were right Ned, he’s a spitting image!”

Spitting image? From Gendry’s perspective, the King was the one that was spitting. 

Ned puts a hand on his shoulder and tells him to sit down, then says something to one of the guards. Gendry sits for fear of passing out. 

When Ned speaks, his voice is quiet. It seems his Grace isn’t even paying much in the way of attention. 

“-should have known the moment I set eyes on you. The king has bastards across the seven kingdoms…”

It should shock him, but it really doesn’t. Gendry always knew he was the son of some drunk who didn’t care a sod for him or his mother. But still- seven hell, he was the son of the king?

He is shocked, when the guard returns with Arya in tow. 

To her credit, she is dressed just as he was in the shop, and is gaping as much as he is. Ned introduces her, but she doesn’t say anything, and Gendry can’t say anything either. 

Ned grabs Arya by the arm and talks to her quietly. Gendry can’t make out everything, but he can see Arya’s face. 

“I’ll send someone back to Flea Bottom to get your things-”

Arya shakes her head. 

“Let me go, he doesn’t have much,”

She turns to Gendry,

“Do you want any of your things aside from that stupid helm?”

Suddenly lost, Gendry shakes his head. Once she leaves the room, he looks pleadingly to Lord Stark for an explanation. His face is pinched, as though he is in pain at the thought of what’s coming next. 

“It seems you’ve met my daughter already?”

Gendry nods, silent, in hopes that that’s the right answer. 

“For how long?”

Gendry’s even more confused, 

“She wandered into the blacksmith’s shop two and half years ago. She hangs around all the time, can’t seem to get rid of her, but she’s good enough to talk to.”

Lord Stark’s mouth is still thin, but Gendry swears he sees a tiny smile begin to form. 

“My men used to often call her Arya Underfoot, she could make friends anywhere she went, don’t know why I thought it would be any different here, as much as I’ve feared for her safety...but that might at least smooth some bits of this out a bit.”

Smooth out? What on earth-

Lord Stark puts a hand back on his shoulder.

“I don’t want to dump everything on you at once.”

Arya eventually returns, and hands him a bundle with the bull’s head helm on top. She gives him a look before Lord Stark pulls her aside and Gendry is left alone with his thoughts. 

When the pair of them return, Arya’s face is pinched and an interesting mix of purple and brown that makes Gendry feel like she’d been yelling. She’s dressed differently, in a shirt and green wool dress. Perfectly ordinary among women of nearly every station. And she’s carrying two bags. 

Gendry wants to ask her what happened, but can’t find any words. 

“It-it’s getting late, I should be getting back to the forge-”

Lord Stark shakes his head. 

“I’m sending you north.”

Gendry’s mind explodes. 

“I-”

He shakes his head again, and gets up and begins leading them, down through the craftsman's exit. Dimly, Gendry realizes that several guards, all northerners from the looks of them, are following them. He’s trying to figure out where Lord Stark could possibly be taking them, when they turn towards the docks. His stomach flips itself over and over, inside and out. Fucking hells, he was serious. 

Gendry’s steps are unsteady when they reach the boat. He doesn’t know what kind it is- can’t tell one boat from another, truthfully. He tries not to fall. The Stark’s other men come aboard, paying him no mind, and talk to another man, who must be the captain. 

Peering precariously over the edge, he sees Lord Stark talking with his daugther again. He makes out bits, “I can’t…he’s my friend...you remember Jon...be mean to him.”

He can’t even pretend to make heads or tails of it, so he leans back and tries not to fall off the side before the ship even leaves. 

Eventually, Arya makes her way onboard, asks one of the men where the cabin is, grabs Gendry by the wrist and drags him off. 

The boat smells of salt, damp wood, and sweat. It’s crowded by men who look much like the ones he used to see all along the street of steel. Thankfully, they seem preoccupied with actually doing their work instead of picking a fight with the largest person here. 

Arya pulls them into the cabin, which is tiny, with only two straw mattresses and space for their bags in the middle. She drops everything on the floor, shuts the door, and begins pacing. 

“Arya,” Gendry roughly interrupts. Using her name gets her attention at least, and his voice softens, “I think I’m owed an explanation.”

Arya bites her lip and takes a deep breath before sitting, cross legged on the straw mattress. 

“King Robert is not known for being a faithful husband. He has bastard children all over the seven kingdoms. You’re the oldest boy my father has tracked down. You have a sister in the Vale, and a brother in Storm’s End as well.”

OK, Gendry had managed to surmise the first part of that. 

“If this is well known-”

Arya cuts him off. 

“Because my father has begun to suspect that the Queen’s children are not the King’s.”

That takes Gendry aback for a moment, but he thinks of the burly, dark haired king and the queen’s three extremely blonde children, and it makes a bit of sense. 

“He hasn’t managed to gather any proof, but if word leaks out, you could be in danger, so he wanted to get you out of the city, and to get you north where we could keep you safe, and teach you all those stupid highborn things you’re supposed to know.”

Seven hells, were they really going to try and make a highborn out of him? Gendry had spent most of his life in the dirt laughing at those above him. Thinking of how stupid they looked in their bright, ostentatious outfits and their overpowering perfume. It was easier than resenting them and that they could crush them all under their feet. Did they really want him to become like that? He’s spent his whole life living the role of the bastard blacksmith, he’s not sure he could do anything else. 

Arya’s face is still cranky, she’s got her arms crossed and her chin tucked into her chest. 

“There’s something else isn’t there?”

Arya takes a deep breath and rubs her temple before continuing. 

“Father and King Robert agreed the best way to make your no one doubts your legitimacy- before he does it officially of course- would be to find your a highborn girl to marry.”

Well, this keeps getting better and better. Gendry had never really thought any girl would ever want to marry him, and he’d learned his lesson about going off with randoms. 

“So did they drop a name?”

Arya stares at him like he’d grown a second head. 

“What?”

She stares harder. 

“Gods you’re stupid.”

She then rolls her eyes completely upward and points at herself. 

Gendry’s brain momentarily stops working. 

“I can’t marry you, what are you, ten?”

“I’m nearly fifteen!”

He knows that, but that’s still his knee jerk reaction. Arya’s a shrimp for her age. 

“Don’t we get any say in this?”

Arya looks like she wants to call him stupid again. 

“Oh you really don’t know how this highborn thing works.”

She bites her lip and breathes in deeply. 

“Besides, I wouldn’t want to leave you to the vultures down south. Plenty of women would see a new, green prince and see the perfect opportunity to latch on and get their claws in you.”

Prince, fucking hell. 

“And at least we’re actually friends.”

Yes. Friends. Those were things he could really use at about this moment. Looking at how riled up Arya is disturbs him. She was always so carefree. 

He sits on the other mattress, and rests his head in his hands. After a moment, he tilts his head in her direction. 

“Are you really okay with this?”

Arya snorts softly, with less derision than he would expect. 

“I’ve never wanted to marry anyone, I always thought I’d find some way out of it, maybe run away over the wall. But I trust my father, and it’s not like we’re doing it next week, it will be at least a year or two until they can teach you history and manners and how to walk like you’ve got a spear shoved up your arse, and then Robert can declare you the proper crown prince.”

There it is again. 

“I don’t know how to do any of this,” Gendry admits, “I can’t read or write much, and I don’t know much of anything about being outside of Flea Bottom, and they’re going to want me to be the fucking crown prince?”

Arya laughs. 

“You’re getting too stuck on the big, lofty things too fast, we have time. I’m still stuck on the fact that I’m going to have to see you naked.”

Well, he has been trying very hard not to let his brain wander in that direction, but since she’s gotten there herself…

“Don’t pretend you don’t want a piece of all of this,” Gendry teases, with his hands gesturing back towards his chest and a shit eating grin, “I know that’s the real reason you always hung around when I would work with my shirt off-”

His sentence is cut off with an “oof” when Arya tackles him to the mattress, knee aiming far too close to his balls. He manages to wiggle free, but she’s far too slippery for him to pin. She kicks him in the side, and he drops one of her wrists, when she shakes her head and snarks, 

“I don’t think I’ll be able to look you in the eye after that.”

Heaving, she finally agrees to say uncle when she realizes the other Stark men might find them like this, unceremoniously shoves Gendry on his back, and goes to retrieve them lunch.

Gendry doesn’t like boats much. The rocking makes him feel constantly sick, and there’s hardly anything to look at. And it’s not like he has work to be done. 

Arya spends her time giving him a rundown of everything he’ll have to know before getting to Winterfell. She knows the names of all the men who came on the boat with them, who all greet her by name when they see her, and spare him suspicious looks. 

Arya rolls her eyes at that. 

She points him out the lines over the water where the whales come up for air. Gendry’s never thought much of the ocean, but the idea of animals living beneath it that are so huge has a way of making you feel small. 

The last day aboard, Arya tells him about Jon. It’s not the first time, but it’s the first that he’s gotten the details. 

“Father won’t tell us who his mother is,” Arya says so softly it’s almost a whisper, “Won’t even speak a word of her. And ever since Jon left for hte wall…” she trails off. 

Gendry frowns. Even in just a few short interactions, Gendry could see the respect and admiration Arya had for her father. 

“I know lots of men have bastard children,” she continues, “Men like your father who care nothing at all for their wives. But him and Mother always seemed so perfectly in love...and he acts so secretive about it, even when Mother treated Jon…”

She sucks in a breath, and her voice abruptly changes. Gendry is seized by the desire to tell her he would never do that to her, to tell her how exactly zero parts of him wants to be anything like his father, but the idea gets caught in his throat. Inappropriate he thinks, far from the time. 

“You should be on your best behavior around my mother, she has very set views on what bastards are like, and they are not positive.”

Arya’s voice darkens. 

“She has very set views on what ladies are like too. It’s been nearly three years...I wonder if she’ll soften at all to my trousers and sword wielding if I’ve already found myself a husband…”

Gendry looks her up and down. She’s wearing the same plain dress she’s worn the whole voyage, and her hair is tied back with several bits flying loose in the salty air. 

“How come you don’t like wearing dresses?”

Arya looks at him, confused, as though no one has ever thought to ask her that question before. 

“They get caught on things, dragged in puddles, trap my feet when I run...before I started taking Bran and Jon’s cast offs, I don’t think I owned a single piece of clothing that hadn’t been dripping in mud at one point. But a girl traveling in trousers is something people would remember, and we don’t want this crew to remember us.”

The crew that has been thankfully ignoring them, save to provide them their sad rations of salted meat and hard tack. 

They disembark in White Harbour, and Gendry couldn’t be more grateful. The voyage disagreed with him greatly, and despite the frigid winter air, he’s just happy to be on solid ground again.

The first night they off board, when they camp along the road, is when Arya changes back into the same deerskin breeches she wore pretty much every time he’d seen her in Flea Bottom. 

“I like you like this,” he tells her when he’s eyeing the horse one of the Stark men had obtained in White Harbour warily, as though it could smell his unease from here, “You look like yourself.”

Arya’s face is inscrutable as she mounts her own horse, much more easily than him. 

They’re riding a bit further from the others when she quietly replies, 

“I’m sorry I’m not pretty. The future crown prince would have his choice of the most beautiful women in the seven kingdoms for his bride usually, and you’re stuck with Arya Horseface.”

Horseface? Gendry exchanges a glance with the dark gray mare he’s riding. Her eyes are dim and resigned. No resemblance there at all.

“Maybe your face won’t sink ships,” he tells her gently, “but you aren’t ugly. There’s more than one kind of pretty, and pretty isn’t everything.”

And Gendry’s not sure if he would trust a pretty woman who claimed to want him anymore, crown prince or not. 

Maybe it’s because the boat ride was so unpleasant, but the few days ride from White Harbour to Winterfell feel like nothing at all, and before Gendry knows it, he’s face to face was an actual castle. 

Arya’s mood has brightened considerably when approaching the keep. She bounces in the saddle, a grin on her face, looking more and more like the energetic, inquisitive child who first appeared in the shop three years ago. 

And then the gate opens, and Gendry is completely overwhelmed again. 

Winterfell is nothing like the tiny glimpses he’d gotten of the Red Keep. The people within the walls bustle and move about their day with ease, and no one seems to be cowering in fear. 

And then there’s the Starks themselves. He knows their names, but now they have faces attached to those names. Robb, about his age and terribly gracious. Rickon, who in a great surprise to his sister, is now up to her shoulders, and with that same wild energy Gendry had seen in Arya. Bran, Gendry remembers hearing the story of his fall from a tower here, pale and thin, having to be pushed in a strange, wheelbarrow like contraption, by a servant. Gendry frowns at it. There must be something that could be made so he could push himself instead of having someone else do it. 

And Lady Catelyn Stark herself. Physically, there’s very little resemblance to Arya in Winterfell’s Lady, and under her gaze, Gendry immediately feels like the naughty child Arya had been in the stories she’d told him, and he hasn’t even done anything yet. 

“Gendry Baratheon,” she greets him, and Gendry finds himself staring at his shoes,

“Not yet, milady,” he mumbles, fire in his veins. 

Lady Catelyn smiles, and he can’t read her smile. 

“Robb,” she asks her eldest, “Please get our guest dressed for dinner.”

Robb apologizes that the clothes he presents Gendry with are going to be a bit small, as Gendry is both an inch or two taller and a bit broader than him. When he examines them, Robb eyes him warily. 

“How was the journey?”

Awful, boats can go to all seven hells, he wants to say, but instead. 

“Just fine,”

Robb cocks his head, 

“And Arya didn’t once try to push you overboard?”

“No,” Gendry says with a chuckle, “We’re friends.”

The breeches and leather doublet are finer than anything Gendry’s ever worn before, but he feels like he’s bursting out of it when Robb leads him back to the Great Hall. Arya too, it turns out, has been wrestled into a silvery gray gown edged in white fur, and for the first time, Gendry thinks she actually looks like a proper lady. 

Except for the fidgeting. 

“It’s too tight and too long,” she complains to him in whispers as they move to sit down. They’re too far apart to keep it up once seated. “It was Sansa’s, and I’m taller than I used to be, but she’d a damn beanpole.”

At least it’s not just him. 

During the meal (roast duck in some sort of fruit sauce he doesn’t recognize but sucks down regardless. It tastes better than anything he’s ever eaten in his life) Robb stands and introduces him, making him duck his head in an attempt to avoid the stares. 

Once everyone’s nearly finished, Rickon asks him if he wants to join them on a hunt the next day. 

“I’ve never been hunting,” Gendry admits, “I don’t think I’d be any good at it.”

“We’ll teach you,” Rickon assures him. 

Lady Catelyn smiles another of her pinched smiles. 

“Robert loved to hunt. I imagine as his son, you will follow after him in many of those regards.”

Maybe she doesn’t mean anything by it, but Gendry’s insides rage. She’s just met him, she barely knows anything about him, and she’s already thinking he’s going to be just like the fat, drunken, lecherous king…

The fire within him is interrupted by something plunking in the middle of his forehead. He plucks it up, a sticky, candied nut, one that had been served with dessert. Soft snickering gives away where it came from, and Lady Catelyn is interrupted to scold her daughter.

So, with a shrug and a look in Robb’s direction, Gendry does the only natural thing to do. He picks up his spoon and uses it to fling the nut cluster right back in Arya’s direction.


	2. Chapter 2

Gendry, it turns out, does not care for hunting. Riding in general is still a new skill for him, though he does feel like he’s getting better at it. Arya seems determined to show him every single thing in the north, and frankly, outside of his lessons, Gendry welcomes the reprieve. 

Gendry knows his letters and numbers, more than well enough to keep track of his own accounts. The types of reading and writing that are expected of him as a future Lord, are quite different. Maester Luwin is beyond patient (reminding Gendry that he had managed to teach both Arya and Rickon to read and write with some degree of skill), but the process makes Gendry’s hand ache and eyes cross. 

While he’s practicing one day, he glances down the table to Arya, who had quietly come in and began scribbling on a sheet of paper beside him. 

“What are you working on?”

“The household accounts. Who needs to be paid, what needs to be ordered, that sort of thing. I need to finish before Mother and I meet with Varyn Poole and make the rounds before supper.”

Gendry raises an eyebrow, and she smiles. 

“This is a Lady’s actual work. This I know I can do.”

She had been pleased to come home to Lady Catelyn insisting that she assist with her own duties rather than just sitting in lessons with Septa Mordane all day. Though, those still happened too. More of them than before, truly, ones about scary future things, potential queenly things.

Something strange had happened as well, the first day she had been back at Winterfell. She had left her chambers quite early, when the sun was still low in the sky, to practice the exercises Syrio had taught her. Arya missed her old master greatly, but she knew he had longed to return to Braavos, and the least she could do was keep up her practice. The only other thing she missed from King’s Landing was Ned, and waiting for every raven from him brings both anticipation and trepidation. 

When she was finishing up, she had turned and realized with a start that her mother was watching from the corner of the yard. The shock hit her so hard, she braced herself for a reprimand. 

“Nice to see something could teach you a bit of discipline. Go clean up before breakfast.”

Arya had been so confused she had actually done as she was told. 

When she finishes up checking her numbers, she asks Gendry. 

“What’s on your plate after this?”

“Luwin says history and strategy.”

“Well some of that’s fun at least.”

Gendry leans forward and pushes his head against the smooth wood of the desk. Maester Luwin had left for a moment, so he felt like he could without insulting the old man.

“Then lunch, then I’m free for a bit.”

“Same place as usual? I might be there too.”

Gendry chuckles before she gets up to leave.

“There” was the Winterfell smithy. Mikken had taken to taking a long lunch to avoid the warmest part of the day and working past supper, leaving the forge free for an hour or two to be used by an upjumped bastard who missed his trade. Gendry was confused why the man didn’t have apprentices of his own. Arya had merely shrugged and said that was how it had always been. 

“Do you miss it that much?” she asked him today, while he’s beating out a practice piece.

“The work, yes, if not the customers.” He wipes his hands on his trousers. “It was how I knew my worth. I worked hard, my results were good, people paid me. Here- here I don’t know. Do highborns ever take up trades?”

Arya shrugs. She does that a lot it seems, no wonder Maester Luwin said she was a beast to teach. 

“Some likely do, as a hobby. Sansa writes that Willas Tyrell breeds hounds and horses. Maybe smithing could be your thing, the way wenches and ale are King Robert’s.”

Gendry’s blood boils, he knows she doesn’t mean it that way, but the very idea of his greatest skill being compared to boozing and whoring made him light up. 

“What will yours be, the queen who flings food at people?”

Arya raises an eyebrow. 

“Been holding onto that for these six moons? I only did it because I thought Mother was upsetting you, I thought you realized.”

He...had not. It made sense though. He imagines he’s not a subtle man when it comes to emotions.

“The reading and writing will come easier. Eventually, it will be like second nature.” she tells him, before leaving. 

And it drives him up the wall to admit she’s right, that with practice both of them become easier, even the longhand letters with all the fancy flourishes.

She’s reading something one day beside him in lessons again, and he asks what it is again. 

“Letter from Sansa.”

He raises an eyebrow. For all she used to complain about how Sansa did everything right and she never could measure up, she seems to miss her now that she’s home and getting letters from her. 

“How is she?”

Arya sighs softly. 

“Not sure really.”

Sansa’s letters have been...odd, is the only way Arya can put it. 

“She’s betrothed to...someone from the Reach right?”

Their conversation is interrupted by Maester Luwin coughing. Gendry sighs and recites.

“The Reach, second largest kingdom in Westeros after the North. South of the Westerlands, east of the Stormlands. Ruled by House Tyrell at Highgarden, sigil is a golden rose. The most fertile of the seven kingdoms, they produce much of the kingdom’s food.”

At least that’s something useful to be known for. 

Maester Luwin nods approvingly, and Arya continues. 

“Sansa’s betrothed to Willas Tyrell, heir to Highgarden,” she bites her lip, “When she left here, she was ecstatic.”

“You think she changed her mind, that she doesn’t want to marry him?”

Arya makes a face. It’s not like it would matter if she had. She had asked Catelyn once why they had accepted the betrothal given the age difference. Catelyn had spoken a bit about the strategic importance of the Reach, especially with winter coming. And then she had said, 

“And with your sister’s romantic heart, we thought she might enjoy having a husband who could not go off to war and leave her behind.”

It was something to think about, when she replies to Gendry.

“I don’t know. She speaks very well of him. He is quite a bit older than her, so maybe she doesn’t think they have anything in common. He’s crippled too, he fell from a horse years ago.”

More reason not to spend more time riding than he had to, Gendry decided. 

“He did write a very sweet letter to Bran after he woke up from his fall ...Sansa’s always been so certain she knew just how she wanted her life to go, maybe the reality is hitting her a bit hard.”

She’s not sure that’s it, but that’s what she’s decided to go with. Suddenly, she brightens with an idea.

“You have a brother now too, living in Storm’s End. If you need writing practice, you should write him letters, get to know him better.”

Gendry winces. Even if he weren’t self conscious about his writing, he still wouldn’t want to reach out cold to a brother he’s never met. 

“That won’t...draw attention to us or anything?”

Maester Luwin interrupts again. 

“Edric has been acknowledged by King Robert when he was young. His mother was of noble blood, so his existence was treated quite differently than yours. A letter or two should not arouse any unusual suspicions, and would be a fine time for me to teach you the finer points of formal correspondence.”

That’s something else everyone has begun to talk about too. That as a future king, he should start making connections with other nobles. While Robb and Lady Stark agree that’s not safe for him to travel right now, with eyes from the capital potentially everywhere. Arya sometimes speaks to him about fearing for her father being all alone in the south.

They do insist, however, that whenever one visits Winterfell, he at least be introduced. Whether they are making a petition or simply pledging fealty, he must greet them. 

Gendry’s still a Waters, and they don’t wish to draw attention to his parentage, so if asked, he is introduced as a Ser, and Arya’s betrothed. The northerners still raise eyebrows, but Gendry forces his face to remain impassive. The back of his neck drips with sweat through every exchange.

The Manderly’s from White Harbour are the first. Their Lord is a very large and boisterous man who Gendry doesn’t think he could get a single word in edgewise with. His two daughters are both polite, and Arya is immediately drawn towards asking the younger one about her garish green hair. 

After the first, they all begin to blend together. Umber, Karstark, Cerwyn, other names. 

One, rather than an old man, perhaps with a younger relative or two, is a young woman with curly hair. She is here, she says, on behalf of her ill father. She carries a spear, and Gendry sees the spark appear in Arya’s eye, the spark that says she has spied a potential friend, a kindred soul, a ghost of which had been on her face meeting Wylla Manderly. Gendry loves that spark, it warms him inside to see it. Quite a lot about her seems to warm him nowadays.

It’s after they finish and Arya runs eagerly after, that Gendry asks Lady Stark. 

“If I’m going to be king one day-” the words spill out, stumbling, running into things. The idea still will not take root, even as he finds himself growing so much more comfortable with the clean clothes, regular food and friendly faces within Winterfell. “Shouldn’t I get to do this with the whole country before I make any decisions about anything.”

Lady Stark’s mouth forms a tight, thin line.

“As a king, you will have advisors aplenty. Additionally, you may wish to suggest reviving the idea of a royal progress so that you may see much of it for yourself. Your father took his throne when much of what he knew of the country was through waging war against it, and from what I’ve heard he relies very heavily on the knowledge and experience of others to rule, so I imagine you shouldn’t be held back too much by the shortcomings of your birth.”

Gendry’s blood boils again. Whenever he talks to Lady Stark, he nearly always comes off with his blood boiling it seems, and Arya’s not here to distract him now. He grits his teeth and decides it would be best to leave right now. 

He ends with a curt, “I think I will be going now, milady,” his voice very carefully emphasizing the shortened pronunciation.

After leaving, he finds Arya with the other woman (Meera Reed, Arya will chide him, while rolling her eyes later, for him forgetting her name so quickly) in the training yard, carefully examining the points of her three-pronged spear. Gendry just holds back and watches until they finish. 

Once they are done, Gendry notes that Arya had an odd look on her face. 

“Something got your tongue?”

Arya chews her lip. 

“It’s just a story Meera told me.”

Gendry looks at her quizzically. 

“Has anyone mentioned my aunt Lyanna to you?”

Gendry frowns. The name sounds familiar, but he can’t place it. 

Arya nods over her shoulder. 

“We’re not needed anywhere right now. Follow me.”

They’re halfway across the Keep, when Gendry realizes she’s leading him towards the crypt, and feels a queer sensation in his gut. This is deeply personal. 

“Lyanna was my father’s sister. She was supposed to marry King Robert, but was kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen. That’s why your father started the war, to get her back. She died regardless. That’s all I ever really knew about her, that she died and King Robert never seemed to get over it.”

The crypts are dark, even in the middle of the day, they have to carry a torch, but Arya leads him easily. She tells him a bit of what Meera told her, about the Tourney at Harrenhal, and Lyanna attacking the three squires who had been beating a defenseless man. 

“I knew of the Tourney, but only that it ended with her being abducted.”

They’ve reached the correct statue, and Arya raises the torch. The sculpture is of a pretty woman, only a little older than her. Gendry doesn’t have to ask before seeing the resemblance.

“Father sometimes said I reminded him of her. But all anyone ever said that meant was that she was beautiful. If what Meera says is true- then I like the comparison much more.”

On an impulse Gendry can’t quite understand, he reaches out and takes her hand. 

“I still can’t get my head around possibly being Queen one day...but if there’s an upside, it’s that. I would be able to protect the people who can’t protect themselves. Maybe, anyway.”

It’s the best reason to want to be queen, Gendry supposes.

As the moons go by, he is incredibly grateful for Arya. It’s only with her that he feels like he truly belongs here. 

It’s not like the others don’t try. Bran will sit with him frequently during lessons, animatedly adding and asking Maester Luwin for more information on whatever they’re studying; history, strategy. It must be the best thing Bran can find to occupy his time now. Sometimes he came riding with them, but he was far more skittish than he’d been as a child, Arya told him, even with the saddle Tyrion Lannister had helped design.

Maester Luwin had shown him a few drawings at one point, asking for input on a couple of design ideas for a way Bran could get around without someone needing to push or carry him. There must be a way, Gendry thinks, he’s hardly the first injured lordling in history. 

Robb too, reaches out to him. Gregarious, dutiful Robb, always inviting him to join them on rides and hunts (he often goes) or to explore Winter Town (he’ll go sometimes during the day) who tries to teach him to play dice and cyvasse (Arya taught him the first on the down low- she’s not supposed to know how, but she’ll often join the two in a game of cyvasse). 

He tries, but it still feels like there’s a wall between them. This isn’t helped by the discovery that though he has spent a decent part of his life making swords, Gendry doesn’t have much idea how to wield one. 

Arya was horrified. Until his lessons with Ser Rodrik began going better, she can hardly bear to watch him practice. It made him sad a little, but it was still better than the gazes he got from Robb that always felt like pity. 

He is improving though, in nearly everything. He can hold his sword right now, his handwriting is legible (and Edric does seem pleased to have a penpal), he can remember nearly all the regions of Westeros with very little prodding. He wished it felt like enough.

He’s been at Winterfell nearly a year and a half when the betrothal announcement is made official. They will marry once Arya turns seven and ten, and then they will leave for King’s Landing.

Robb invites him out to Winter Town to celebrate. Gendry wasn’t going to say yes in the first place, but wants to go even less when Theon joins in. 

He hasn’t been rude or dismissive, or anything really, but Gendry still can’t bring himself to like Theon’s often brash, occasionally lecherous self at all. 

And if Theon’s involved, Gendry knows exactly why they’re going into town. 

When he finally begs them off, Theon ends with, “Seven hells, he’s even less fun than Jon.”

So he’s in a spectacularly grouchy mood when Arya ambushes him and asks if he wants to go for a ride. He jumps out of his skin. All this time, she still can sneak up on him. Her doing it in the forge after lunch a few weeks before ended with them in another childish wrestling match. Sometimes he wonders if even marriage will quell these situations. 

“Didn’t want to go to town with them?” she asks while one of the grooms saddles their horses. Autumn has well and set in in the north, but the snow is only a light powder today, “I know Robb sometimes hogs the attention, but there are usually enough fawning girls to go around, and I’m pretty sure Theon is on first name basis with most of the whores in the whole place.”

There’s a tone in her voice he can’t quite put his finger on. And there’s a new sort of offense in his gut. 

“Arya, we’re betrothed. I’m not celebrating by immediately going out and fucking someone else.”

Arya’s expression softens, but still has that odd look on her face. 

“Gendry...I’m the one who’s virtue is considered paramount. If this weren’t happening here, a maester would probably examine me to prove it. No one much cares about yours, you can do what you want.”

The offense Gendry feels twists and changes into outrage. Going to a brothel when you were betrothed to someone else is something his father would do. Something he always knew his father would do, even before finding out he was the king.

“That’s horrible,” he tells her hotly, pulling back on the bit and stalling his horse so he can look straight at her.

“Look,” he starts, trying to mild his voice, “I’ve never had much attention from girls. Not many go for a nameless bastard living among filth. You saw what happened the last time a woman showed interest in me.”

All he got for that brief hand drifting down his breeches was a brick to the head and loss of his first commission. 

“Wait,” Arya interrupts, “Are you saying you’ve never-”

Gendry takes a deep breath before responding, the back of his neck only a little red. 

“No, I’ve never. Never had any offers, true, but also never wanted to get any bastards on anyone.”

He watches her face shift again, but still can’t quite read it. 

“And once we’re wed, I don’t plan on being the sort of husband who can’t stay faithful. That’s not me, that will never be me.”

Even with the words, Gendry feels a bad taste in his throat at the thought. 

Arya’s voice when she speaks again is much quieter. They’ve made the rounds and are back approaching Winterfell again .

“Thank you,” she starts. “Not many men would admit to that.” Her eyes go off onto the horizon, and Gendry has a sinking feeling when he spots Lady Stark waiting beside the stables. 

“You’ve done just what I asked you to,” she continues, sliding out of her saddle as her mother approaches, “You’ve been on nothing but your best behavior.”

She then turns to face the music and leaves him behind, only a little befuddled. 

Catelyn walks with Arya silently until their alone. 

“You shouldn’t go off with him unchaperoned,” she starts, only a little bit scolding, “It will make him think he can take indecent liberties with you. You must remember, he is born of lust and debauchery.”

Arya’s chest burns with indignation. It would normally too, but it does even moreso after their conversation. 

“Mother, we used to wrestle-” well, two weeks ago was technically “used to” wasn’t it? “If that didn’t make him think he could do those things, I don’t think a pleasant evening ride will.”

Her insides are in a twist though. In the past few days, Septa Mordane had begun to give her more specific lessons on what to expect on her wedding night. While the idea of seeing Gendry naked had slowly stopped inciting giggles and instead become mildly intriguing, none of the older woman’s words had been reassuring. Her conversation with Gendry had confused her even more. 

Catelyn sighs softly and brushes the light dusting of snow off of Arya’s jerkin. 

“I would think that if he tried, you would howl like the she-wolf you are, but the two of you do seem to be fond of each other, and you would probably enjoy it, so it is up to the rest of us to remind you of propriety and decency.”

Arya feels herself blushing from head to foot. Her voice sounds almost sulky when she speaks. 

“The way Septa Mordane tells it, I’m not sure if I’m even meant to enjoy it.”

Catelyn smiles fondly, and squeezes her daughters shoulders. 

“You must remember Arya, that while Septa Mordane is very wise and educated, and demands your respect, that she has never been married. If the two of you have respect for one another, there’s no reason what happens in the marriage bed cannot bring joy to the both of you.”

Arya’s nerves are somewhat lifted, though the slight against Gendry from earlier still stings. 

Catelyn leads her back towards her chambers. 

“Your sister wrote us from Highgarden,” she says, changing the subject. “She will be coming home to Winterfell in a few moons. Said she would not even dream of missing your wedding. She will be bringing Willas’s sister Margaery with her as well, and speaks of wishing greatly to help with the planning.”

Margaery, Arya recognizes the name from her letters. 

“How long will we have to do all of this.”

Catelyn brushes her hair down gently. 

“Your seven and tenth name day is only seven moons away, and then you will be on your way to King’s Landing.”

Arya stomach plunges down even further than it had been before. All this time, all the extra lessons, that it still the part of this whole arrangement that frightens her the most. 

For what may be the first time in her life, Arya can’t wait to talk to her sister.


	3. Chapter 3

When Arya had last seen Sansa, she had been thirteen years old and full of giggles and sunshine. 

She still exuded sunshine, but there were far fewer giggles. She had sprouted up during adolescence, her height making her look all the more regal. The gown she wore was a pale blue silk adorned in gold. It wasn’t as extreme as some of the southern gowns Arya had seen- it wouldn’t scandalize anyone at Winterfell- but Arya couldn’t help but wonder if she was cold. 

She seems comfortable enough at supper though, even if Arya swears she can feel her eyes burning into the back of her head. 

Margaery is beautiful and friendly, and the kind of woman who always has eyes on her. She is near exactly how Sansa described her in her letters. 

It’s after supper, when Sansa corners Arya and asks if they could talk alone. Arya nods and the two make their way to the little solar down the hall from the children’s bedchambers.

When they shut the door behind them Arya turns and asks, 

“OK, what do you want?”

Sansa looks offended. 

“Can’t I want to privately catch up with my little sister?”

Arya raises an eyebrow. When Sansa’s face remains earnest, she sighs. 

“Sorry, I guess I forget how long it’s really been.”

Sansa pokes her on the cheek, and then produces from her waist pocket a piece of cloth wrapping four lemon cakes.

While they’re munching on them, Sansa interrogates her. 

When Arya tells her about having met Gendry on the street of steel well before knowing he was any sort of noble, Sansa practically squeals. 

“That sounds so like you,” she insists, “Sneaking off and getting in trouble. But finding a bastard prince that way? It’s straight out of a song.”

Arya groans. 

“I didn’t know any of that when I met him. He was just a smith and I was just a pest to him. “

Sansa raises an eyebrow. 

“And now?”

Arya turns red. 

Her embarrassment is interrupted by the door opening and Gendry entering, wide-eyed and frentic. 

“Is that other woman you came here with-”

Arya rolls her eyes. 

“Margaery Tyrell, you have to try harder to remember.”

“Whatever. She’s staying in the guest house, not near here right?”

Both of Arya’s eyebrows are raised. Gendry sits in one of the unused chairs. 

“Cornered me after you left, plied me with questions. She’s terrifying.”

Arya snorts. Margaery looks like she’s studied and practiced every bit of the art of flattery and charm on high born men. No wonder she frightens Gendry. 

Sansa laughs softly, and Arya reaches across to rub Gendry’s hand soothingly. She then notices Sansa go stiff, and remembers her insisting that they talk alone.

“I’ll apologize for my friend’s behavior. Southern ladies can be very different from us demure northerners, and the Tyrells are nothing if not ambitious.”

The nature of Sansa’s comment enters Arya’s mind and she feels her stomach twisting. Margaery did indeed seem very forward, and to Arya’s knowledge was still unwed. She spares Gendry a glance, he’s pale and jumpy and she feels a rush of affection. She doesn’t think she needs to fear. 

Sansa coughs, and Arya squeezes Gendry’s hand reassuringly. 

“I think we’ll head off to be, I’m sure you’ll be safe from her here,” Arya assures him, standing and leading Sansa off so that they’re alone again. 

Once they’re in her room, Arya turns to Sansa again. They’re sitting on the end of her bed, and Sansa’s idly digging her fingers into the plush of the fur. 

“Okay, what’s on your mind. I could tell there was something up just from your letters.”

Sansa frowns, and looks away. When she speaks, she does not answer the question. 

“Your Gendry is quite handsome…”

Arya snorts. 

“Don’t tell him, he’ll get a swelled head.”

She’s deflecting, but Sansa is not vexed. 

“You like him, that much is easy to see-”

Her voice changes. 

“But do you desire him?”

The question takes Arya aback, and she doesn’t know how to respond at first. With the back of her neck pink, she tries not to think of the strange feeling that’s come to sit in her gut whenever she thinks of her marriage, or of the dreams that have begun coming to her after they spend the day together, just talking and laughing. 

“I-” Arya’s voice falters, “I don’t know, truly. I’m not sure what desire really feels like? But, when we’re alone, I do wonder what it would be like if he touched me sometimes. I want to know what it would be like.”

Sansa smiles grimly, but doesn’t speak. Arya interrupts her silence. 

“Sansa, do you still want to marry Willas?”

Sansa sighs deeply, tucking her knees up under her chin, no easy feat with her voluminous skirt. 

“Willas is wonderful. He’s courteous and kind. He’s always interested in what I’m talking about, and I’ve never heard him have an unkind word about anyone. I could spend every day of the rest of my life in his company and be perfectly content. I could probably come to love him, as Mother often speaks of how she came to love Father. But-”

Sansa bites her lip. 

“I don’t want him, not as a woman wants a man.”

Arya is confused. True, Sansa had never spoken about lust or desire being involved in her vision of marrying a perfect man, but this is still an odd confession. 

“Do you know, Sansa? How it feels? Otherwise, how would you know?”

Sansa presses her chin to her knees and wraps her arms around her shins. 

“Yes. I have felt desire. But not for a man.”

Arya’s brain is spinning. She’s heard some about things of this sort, but always in places she wasn’t supposed to be listening. She thinks of what Sansa’s told her before. 

“...Margaery?”

Sansa’s nod is so tiny Arya barely notices. When she speaks, her voice is mouse-like. 

“When I first got to Highgarden, she was incredibly gracious. She’s Mace’s only daughter, but the whole keep was full of her cousins and daughters of other minor houses from the Reach. I think she realized that with the age difference between Willas and I that I might feel...alienated. “

“She taught me to ride better, took me through nearly every inch of the lands surrounding the estate. She helped me prepare for every ball and every masquerade. She was always surrounded by other girls, but she always made time for just us as well.”

Sansa’s voice has become clipped, as though she is short of breath. 

“It was last year, when she was helping me with my costumes for the harvest masquerade. One minute she was helping me fix my hair so it would fit under my mask...the next we were kissing. I’m still not sure which of us started it.”

Sansa’s rubbing her wrists, seemingly unconsciously. 

“I remember it started with her hands on the back of my neck...I never knew a person’s neck could be so sensitive…”

Arya’s words have frozen in her throat, so she just lets Sansa talk for a bit. Sansa’s gaze has gone off into corners. 

“Her grandmother sent her with me because she’s trying to convince her to go against her father’s advice and seek a betrothal with Robb.”

Arya cocks her head when she responds. 

“Do you think she will?”

Sansa sighs deeply, squeezing her knees as if trying to make herself as small as possible. 

“I don’t know. It’s so hard sometimes to know what Margaery wants for real. She wears the mask better than anyone else I’ve ever met. When we’re alone...it seems like she wants me then, but it’s so hard to tell otherwise. She’s been being molded for this her whole life, more than we ever were. I’ve seen her charm men as old as our father, and never break, not once. But if she marries Robb, she’ll come to stay at Winterfell and I’ll hardly ever get to see her again…”

Arya is at a loss for words. 

“What are you going to do?”

Sansa sighs again. 

“Mace Tyrell’s plan was to wed her to Renly Baratheon. She would still leave Highgarden, but Storm’s End is so much closer...and I feel like Renly would understand my pain a bit more.”

Arya crinkles her brow. 

“What do you mean by that?”

Sansa snorts softly. 

“Renly has often been a guest at Highgarden, but he is not enamored of Margaery. He seems to prefer her brother Loras.”

Arya snorts in response. 

“Oh you seem to have found yourself in a mess Sansa,” she says, trying to sound sympathetic. She then rights her face and goes more serious, “You should tell Margaery how you feel. Whatever she does after that, at least you can say you’ve done your part.”

Arya quiets after that, her mind going through far too many things at once. 

“Have-” her voice catches again, “Have you ever done more than kiss her?”

She doesn’t even have to look at Sansa to know both of their faces are glowing red. At some point, they’ve both flopped back against the furs on her bed, and she can’t even make herself look at her. 

When Sansa breaks her silence, it’s with the same small voice from earlier. 

“Quite a bit. Nothing that would- I’m not even sure there’s anything she could do to me to make people question my maidenhead.”

Arya’s shocked, not some much at what she’d done, but what she’d admitted. She still can’t look at her when she asks, 

“Any advice?”

Sansa giggles, and they talk into the night. Sansa falls asleep at the end of her sister’s bed for the first time in forever, to the great confusion of the maid who’d been sent to look for her come morning.

The last moons leading up to the wedding are full of all kinds of things Arya dislikes. Seating plans, formal invitation writing, decorations. 

And sewing, so much sewing. 

“I still don’t see why we need to put so much work into a gown I’m only going to wear once,” Arya complains, when Catelyn accidentally sticks her with a pin. 

“You’re soon to be named a princess, Arya, and possibly a future queen.” she chides, “People will expect you to be presented as best as possible.”

“Besides,” Sansa interjects, holding up multiple different colors of embroidery thread against the fabric, “This is the day everyone gets to come and admire you before you have to start the real work. This is the day you should put all of the fuss in, you can be practical every other day.”

Of course Sansa would think of that as a positive, so Arya bites her tongue. 

She does refuse the gown being made of the fine silk Sansa had returned with from the south. 

“It’s far too cold to wear silk,” she insists, “And the wool is produced here in the north.”

Regardless of marriage conventions, Arya knows she will never stop being a Stark. 

In fact, winter is clearly creeping up upon Winterfell. The snow falls heavier and the wind nips and bites at more every day. 

Gendry’s blood still hasn’t caught up to the north, and every minute he has to spend outside results in shivering and muttering under his breath. His annoyance makes Arya smile and tugs at her chest in a way she doesn’t understand. 

She tries, desperately, to sneak a snowball down the back of his shirt, but alas, he is too tall. 

They eventually finish her gown, white lambswool with silvery-gray embroidery, and her cloak, heavy and lined with rabbit fur. They sit in her chambers, existing in the moment only to be stared at. 

A moon’s turn before the ceremony, Arya goes to meet Gendry in the forge, and he scampers to cover something up. 

She makes a face. 

“What?”

Gendry frowns, sheepish.

“It’s not finished yet.”

She noses around a bit more, but Gendry won’t budge. 

Two weeks before, one of the guards calls a party approaching from the Kingsroad. Arya feels her laughter spring into life when she recognizes who it must be.

Ned is older, more lined, with more gray in his hair. The years in the capital have taken their toll. But when his daughter, seven and ten and all arms and legs, flings herself at him, grinning, he is as young as he has ever been.

At supper the night he returns, Ned passes a scroll bearing the royal seal across the table to Gendry. 

“This is the official decree,” he tells him, “As of the day of it’s writing, you are Gendry Baratheon.”

Arya sees Gendry go very red from across the table, and takes the chance to ask Ned. 

“What are they going to do about the queen and her children?”

Ned sighs, and takes a sip of his ale. 

“I think I managed to talk him into just exiling the children to Casterly Rock. They have done no wrong-”

Well, the younger two have done no wrong, Arya thinks spitefully. 

“But Cersei’s fate is entirely up to him. Even if I was there right now, I don’t think I could stop the blood from flowing.”

Especially with the rumors about the Queen and her brother, that he fought so hard to keep from the King’s ears. He hopes his absence will at least allow a long enough time for the bodies to stop falling. He’s watched for far too long as the man who was once a dear friend be seduced by bloodlust and paranoia. 

Gendry manages to excuse himself from the table early, and Arya stares after him. 

Bran elbows her. 

“You don’t have to try and be so sneaky, he’s just going to work on your wedding present.”

Arya squints at him. 

“How do you know that?”

Bran shrugs. 

“People say all kinds of things in front of me now. It’s like they think I’m a piece of furniture.”

“Gendry does not treat you like a piece of furniture.”

Bran exhales roughly. 

“No, he doesn’t. But he does talk quite a bit about you to family members who aren’t you.”

Bran can’t walk off and leave her confused like he clearly wants to, but he doesn’t say anything else all the same.

Winterfell fills up with both guests and the huge numbers of staff that a lordly wedding requires. The crowds and fires do a great job at keeping the chill away. Things keep piling up and it hits Arya that she’s exactly a week away from being married, and somehow it’s not that, but the beyond that frightens her more. 

But it’s a week before that she explodes with joy when the raven arrives with the news she’s spent so long hoping for. 

She skips down to the forge where she knows Gendry is. He hastily tucks what he’s working on under a cloth before turning to find out why she’s bouncing off the walls. 

He doesn’t even have to ask.

“The Night Watch gave Jon leave,” she tells him excitedly, nearly out of breath, “He’s going to be able to be here for the wedding.”

Gendry smiles. He’s never met Jon, but he can feel Arya’s joy radiating off her. And he knows the way she’s spoken of him over the years, that she still steadfastly calls him her favorite brother, still talks about how much she misses him.

It’s after a long moment, that Gendry realizes she’s still staring expectantly at the bundle on his workbench. He sighs. 

“I suppose it’s close enough that I can show you,” he starts, rubbing it with the cloth a bit, “It’s not like I can give it to you in front of your mother anyway.”

Arya cocks her head in curiosity when he pulls back the cloth. 

“Oh,” she exclaims, reaching out with one hand to touch the shining metal. 

“I know how attached you are to Needle,” Gendry assures her, thinking about what she said about Jon, “But Arya, it’s basically a toy in your hands now. You need something with more heft.”

He reaches and guides her fingers over the design on the grip. 

“I did have Bran give me a drawing of how Needle looked though, so I could make it as close as possible.”

Arya is touched, so touched she feels her eyes grow wet. She blinks rapidly to make the tears disperse, and wipes her face with the back of her hand. She can already hear her mother and her septa’s scolding voices going on about princesses not being supposed to carry swords, but right now, right here, in this dirty forge with her intended, not one bit of that matters. 

She looks at Gendry’s face, so hopeful. She’s certain that he would never once ask her to stop playing with swords, or befriending the smallfolk, or speaking her mind. In fact, he seemed to welcome these things. 

Gendry’s still looking at her expectantly, but his eyes turn a bit shocked when she sets the sword aside and reaches one hand out and gently shoves him until he’s sitting on the bench, his face now nearly at level with hers. 

“I love it,” she whispers, voice feeling strangely breathy, “Thank you.”

They’re so close together that Arya’s next move is easy. She’s never kissed anyone before, not for real anyway. Even when she might have had a glimmer of curiosity with one of her male friends from the village, she never said anything. Most might have refused out of fear of getting in trouble for kissing a Lord’s daughter, but Arya suspects some of the others might have refused, then laughed at her, then stopped being her friend. She had never wanted to risk it. 

But now? Arya would have admitted for years that she liked Gendry. Affection was something she knew and understood. But desire, what Sansa had asked her about, was something foreign, something she didn’t quite understand. 

She wants to kiss him, she wants to know what his skin feels like against hers. Wants to know if that soft scent of skin and soot will stick to her. 

She leans forward and closes the gap between them. 

Gendry’s lips are softer than she expected. She feels the brush of his stubble against her chin, and that draws a sound from her that she didn’t even realize she knew how to make. Arya’s hands grip the edge of his wool tunic. He reaches up and brushes the back of her neck before running his fingers through her hair and she makes another vaguely embarrassing noise. Turns out Sansa was right about the neck thing. 

Eventually, they have to stop to breathe. Arya studies Gendry’s face, her heart skipping a beat when he starts to grin. 

Then he sneaks one more kiss to the corner of her mouth, grins even wider and whispers, “Told you you wanted a piece of this,” completely ruining the moment.

Arya rolls her eyes, shoves him back onto the bench and stands up. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she yells over her shoulder. The sword is still on top of his bench. 

She’ll find a way to sneak it inside tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

Jon barely manages to arrive the day before the wedding, and Arya doesn’t even get to see him until early in the morning the day of. 

Arya’s up with the sun because of nerves. When the handmaid comes to fetch her, she feels like her stomach might boil over. 

Mother had the maids draw her a bath in her solar, and she scrubs every inch of her skin to the handmaid and her mother’s standard. Once she’s dried off, Sansa comes to join them.

They help her dress, even though she’s been handling that by herself for so many years. First her chemise, smallclothes, all of soft linen, and then her stockings.

Then they laid over it, her gown, fine soft wool with trailing sleeves and a round neckline. The cloak knots over her throat, protecting it from the cold. 

Sansa is combing out her hair when the words start spilling from Arya’s mouth. 

“What if we marry and he decides he wants a proper lady as his wife? What if I’m so awful at everything I just end up embarrassing us both? What if-”

Catelyn cuts her off with a pin pressed roughly to her scalp. 

“Arya, given my own perspective on our entire failure to curb your less ladylike behavior, I can safely say that Gendry has no right to say he doesn’t know what he’s getting into.”

That only does a bit to settle the butterflies in Arya’s stomach. 

Butterflies that can barely touch the level of the ones Gendry is experiencing right now. 

His clothing requires far less preparation than hers, so he has far more time to pace and mutter and think of even more things that could go wrong. He doesn’t voice too many of them, not to Ned or Robb, or Bran when he sticks his head in to offer to help. Still after all of this, he doesn’t feel right sharing these doubts with anyone who isn’t Arya. 

Arya’s finished and merely biding her time, when there’s a knock. 

Her heart swells when Jon sticks his head in and asks if he can have a minute alone with her. 

When he steps forward, Arya is suddenly self-conscious. There’s a swooping realization that she comes up to his chin now. He stares at her for a moment, before chuckling, and moving in to hug her. She can’t help herself, lets out a tiny squeal and launches herself into his arms. 

“I was so scared they wouldn’t let you leave,” she admits against his chest. 

“I was too,” he admits, “I was worried you would be scared and need someone to whisk you off over the wall and I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Arya sniffs. 

“It’s alright. I don’t think you need to.”

Her face pulls itself into a strange expression. She’s not sure how to describe it, and Jon has never seen it on her face before. 

Jon steps back, his hands still on her shoulders. 

“Seven hells Arya,” he says, breathless, “Do you actually _want_ to get married?”

Arya’s face flushes deeply, but she doesn’t let it affect her speech. Her embarrassment has no place here. 

“He’s a good man, Jon,” she says quietly, “He’s my friend. But, these people that they want us to become once we are married...neither of us feel like we can do it, we’re both terrified. And I don’t know if we’ll be enough.”

“Arya,” Jon tells her, patting her head, but trying for once not to muss her astonishingly neat hair, “You were one of the bravest little girls I’ve ever met. I doubt the years I’ve been gone have changed that. There’s no challenge I don’t think you can face. And if Gendry is your friend like you say- I don’t doubt it, you could always make friends- then you should be able to lean on each other to make it easier.”

He claps her shoulders twice again. 

“Speaking of Gendry, I should go give him an extra dose of brotherly terror.”

“Please don’t,” Arya asks, “he’s nice, I swear, even if you probably won’t believe it when you meet him.”

Jon chuckles, “I make no promises.”

Once he leaves, Sansa and Catelyn return to help her finish up. She even lets Sansa powder her face, even though the puff makes her sneeze. 

Before she knows it, a maid sticks her head in to tell them they're ready. 

Margaery comes to fetch Sansa back, and she takes a moment to congratulate Arya. She leans in close enough to her ear that Catelyn can’t hear. 

“I’d bet you’re faster than every single man here. You should use that to your advantage, though once you’re back in your chambers, there’s no need to rush.”

She leaves before it hits Arya what she’s talking about, so she shakes it off. She’s nervous enough as it is. 

Eventually Ned comes to retrieve her from Catelyn, and they make their way to the Godswood. 

Arya had not relented on this during planning. While Catelyn had made sure that all her children raised knowing the faith of the seven, Arya had always kept the old gods. She was of the north, and so would be her wedding. Gendry had shrugged, never having been a man of faith himself. 

Though, the officiant is still the wizened old Septon from the town. 

Arya’s mind drifts during the ceremony. She’s never thought much of the vows. She always preferred the sound of the southern vows. But when Gendry wraps her in his heavy, fur lined cloak, it fits her shoulders and she feels warm and content. 

As they kneel to pray, she meets Gendry’s blue eyes, which are crinkling at the corners with a smile, a smile that she realizes is mirrored on her own face. 

The kiss isn’t strictly necessary, but she sneaks it anyway. 

And then there’s applause and yelling, Arya just barely being able to make out the faces of her family, and the two of them are lost in the crowd. 

The feast begins, and the food and drink flows, and Arya reaches under the table to find Gendry’s hand and squeeze it. They are greeted by an endless number of people with an endless line of congratulations. 

Between eating bits of her venison, Arya whispers to Gendry. 

“If we even hear a hint of the word ‘bedding’, we’re going to run,”

She nods towards the exit, which is at least unblocked.

Gendry’s eyes are wide. 

“I thought that was a joke? Highborns really do that?”

Arya snorts. 

“Definitely not a joke, so unless you want nearly every woman in this hall trying to get a grab of your naked self, I suggest you follow my lead.”

He squeezes her hand tighter after that. 

Arya gazes out on the dance floor once the music begins. Dancing is far from being the worst of the womanly arts she’d been taught, if it weren’t for all the stupid ettiquette rules, she might actually enjoy it. But it’s her wedding, so she gets the prerogative just to sit here and watch. 

Off to one side, she watches Sansa and Margaery dancing, hands clasped, less than an arm’s length apart. Arya’s chest pulls tight watching, she hopes Sansa took her advice. Her sister deserves to be happy as much as she does.

Eventually though, the drink keeps flowing and the chatter quiets, and Arya hears one of her father’s older bannerman slam his mug on a table and begin to stand. 

Arya seizes Gendry’s hand, standing abruptly. 

“Follow my lead.”

Because if there’s one thing Arya knows she can do very well, it is run. And she does, full speed. Gendry never drops her hand and stays behind her, never once holding them back. 

By the time they reach her chambers, and Arya bolts the door behind them, they’re both panting and out of breath.

Arya pats the bolt as Gendry sits on the end of her bed. Once she’s sure it’s locked, she sits beside him.

“We might get a few lingering outside, but I don’t think any of my family will let them start shouting suggestions like they do sometimes…”

And Arya remembers why they’re here. They’re married, and her bed will, for tonight, be their marriage bed. Her stomach lurches and her skin tingles with a combination of nerves and anticipation. 

Gendry’s cheeks have become very red and he’s rubbing the back of his neck and she suspects he’s having the same thoughts. 

Just as Arya clears her throat, Gendry opens his mouth and lets out an “erm.” She chuckles. 

“The kissing felt nice,” Arya starts, quiet as a mouse, “We could just start there and see where it goes.”

Gendry nods, a little too quickly, and reaches for her hand again. 

His lips do feel nice still, and his hand in hers feels nice too. His hand leaves hers and slowly makes its way up her arm to her neck. With a deep breath, Arya lets her eyes fall closed. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so she lets them sit on Gendry’s doublet. 

He pulls back for a moment, and Arya plays with the fastener on the front of the garment. 

“Can I?” she asks. Gendry swallows roughly, and then nods. Her hands undo the fasteners quickly, before she loses nerve, and pushes the leather from his arms. 

He still has his undershirt on, but it seems like a line has been crossed and kissing him again when they’re done is easier. 

After a moment, Gendry’s hands begin to fumble at her back. Arya’s confused until his voice says, “erm, you’re going to have to help me.”

“Oh,” she says, reaching back and twisting, “There’s a string tucked back here somewhere…”

She feels him pull the wrong side, and stretches, “not that one, that just makes it tighter-” but eventually, her wiggling manages to get the ties pulled loose, and the top of her dress pools around her hips. 

She stands up and pushes it further to the floor. Standing like this, undressed, with Gendry’s eyes locked on her, makes her feel strangely powerful. She takes a deep breath, and with a rush of courage, pulls her chemise over her head too.

The stunned look on Gendry’s face makes it all worth it. Arya feels herself burst out laughing. 

“What?”

“You just look so happy,” she admits. If she’d known the sight of her tits would make him smile so much, she’d have shown him them years ago. 

He carefully reaches out with both hands. His fingers are gentle, but callused, and the rough pads feel surprisingly nice against the soft skin. 

“What can I say,” he says, grinning wolfishly, “tits are great.”

Sometimes Arya feels she really doesn’t understand men anymore than women. 

She reaches and tugs on his undershirt. 

“Come on, you too,” she says, only a hint of impatience. He has it off in what seems like no time, and Arya pushes herself half into his lap in anticipation of feeling his bare skin against hers. 

Gendry makes a grouchy noise when her move means he can’t touch her as easily, so she responds by nipping the side of his neck. She grins at seemingly getting the upper hand, when Gendry turns the tables back by ducking and managing to run his tongue over a nipple. 

Arya is suddenly brought into another fit of the giggles by the thought of the word “nipple”. 

“It’s alright, there’s nothing wrong,” she says through her giggles when Gendry looks up at her, concerned. She squishes herself closer against him, kissing his cheeks and his neck, and finding that soft little hollow behind his ear. 

Warmth pools between her legs, she recognizes it, but has never felt it this intensely before. The furtive wanderings of her own hands could never even hope to bring these feelings to her. With a shock, she realizes she also recognizes the growing hardness pressed against her. 

With a rush of boldness, Arya runs a hand down Gendry’s chest and stomach, fingers brushing questioningly at the laces of his breeches. Her feelings of courage are betrayed that she can tell that her face is entirely and completely beet red. 

It’s not that she’s never seen a man naked before, she thinks when he nods and she begins to undo the laces, she’s seen her brothers naked hundreds of times when they bathed in the pools in the Godswood. But it was neve this close, and she was never, well, looking. 

She gets his breeches loose, and her hand snakes underneath the fabric. Her mind barely has time to process that she’s actually _touching Gendry’s cock,_ when he gasps, and grunts into her neck, and all of a sudden her hand is sticky. 

“I’m sorry,” Gendry babbles, pulling back, humiliated. Arya looks at her hand and connects the dots. 

“Already?” she asks, standing to reach for a cloth by the wash basin, to wipe her hand. She then passes it to Gendry, who dabs off his crotch, red-faced. His breeches are still hanging open, his cock soft and tender-looking. 

“But, it- it’ll come back right?” she asks, confused. 

He nods softly, finally managing to meet her eye. She laughs softly, trying to put him at ease.

“It’ll take time though,” he turns and rests his head on her shoulder and she feels a rush of affection she can’t really explain. “Might be a blessing in disguise though. All the advice I’ve gotten on this from men who seemed even half-decent said that you’re the one who will need warming up.”

Arya smiles, and Gendry reaches to push off her small clothes and stockings. She doesn’t tell him that she already feels quite warm. 

“I may not know quite what I’m doing,” he nearly whispers, “But I’ll do my best.”

She doesn’t tell him that she’s come to like the idea. The idea that she’s not going to be compared to the memory of other women, that she’ll be the only one who gets to see him like this, to feel him. That this will be just for the two of them. 

Once she’s naked, Gendry pushes his own clothes off onto the floor and gently nudges her up the bed towards the pillows. His eyes rake over her, and Arya tries not to feel too exposed, even when he reaches and nudges her thighs apart. 

Gendry thinks back to some of the girls he knew in Flea Bottom, one’s who had on occasion let him kiss or touch them outside taverns or in alleyways. They’d never gotten properly naked though, and he’d never gotten to take such a good look before. 

Arya’s gone red-faced yet again. When she’d flowered, she’d taken a hand mirror and put it between her legs, attempting to get a good look at her own cunt. She hadn’t been impressed. 

“Kind of looks like a monster from under the ocean right?” she says, nervously, and then yelps when he grazes a finger along her. 

“Have you ever heard ‘the Dornishman’s Wife’?” he asks, voice stuttering, ignoring her comment. 

Arya nods, not sure where this is going. Gendry presses his fingers against her harder. 

“Girl who worked at the same alehouse my mum used to- I would go back to see them all sometimes- married a man from Dorne. All the other waitresses teased her mercilessly...because of it I learned what the song meant. “ 

Arya’s mouth gapes. 

“-you want to-” She knows what he’s talking about. She’d practically curled up and died hearing Sansa describe it, even as the thought intrigued her. She wonders if she should tell Sansa that boys can do it too. 

“The other girls all teased Ruth a lot, but they seemed quite jealous of her too.”

His fingers start moving against her, as though searching for something. 

“Oh, here,” Arya tells him, reaching down to move his fingers, “Further up, where the bits all come together.”

He finds the little nub, and rubs it softly. Arya keens. 

“That wasn’t so hard,” Gendry says, sounding proud of himself, “Some men talk like it’s trying to find a rock at the bottom of the sea.”

Then he leans forward and licks it, and Arya lets out possibly the most undignified noise she’s ever made. She reaches out for the back of his head and runs her fingers through his hair. Gendry’s tongue runs itself over all of her cunt, watching her eyes carefully for any signs of discomfort. None come, Arya’s quickly wound tight at the sensation, panting, rolling over to her own peak quickly, quicker than she’s ever come by herself. 

“So how do I taste?” she asks, breathless, trying to bring herself back down to earth. 

Gendry’s head pops up from between her knees, and rests on her stomach, eyes still looking for hers. 

“Sticky and sour.”

Arya huffs, offended and he laughs. 

“Not in a bad way...kind of like a really, really ripe peach.”

Well, she supposes a peach is at least much better than a sea monster. 

Gendry pulls himself up beside her on the pillow. 

“That was-” he says, out of breath. 

“Yeah,” Arya agrees.

With a glance downward, Arya feels a blush prickle at her neck. 

“Looks like you’re ready to go again.”

Gendry pulls himself halfway up the pillows, and then leans over and touches her face softly. 

“Ready to give this a shot?”

Arya nods. 

There’s no coming back from this. Their marriage will be official, unbreakable, in the eyes of the gods.

She nods again. 

To her surprise, Gendry grabs and pulls her over on top of him. When she looks down at him quizzically. 

“You’ve pretty clearly got a better grasp of this than me.”

With that vote of confidence, Arya reaches between them. His cock is swollen and red, somehow both hard and soft at the same time, but she doesn’t take too long to marvel. She takes a deep breath, lines them up, and slowly sinks down. 

Gendry sits himself up a bit higher as she slowly presses down until he can’t go in any further. Arya goes still, and his kisses one cheek softly, and her nose, and the corner of her mouth.

“You know that feeling,” Arya starts slowly, “When you hit your elbow against something- that kind of fast, white feeling before it actually starts hurting? That’s kind of what it’s like.”

She breathes in and out a few times, and relaxes all her muscles. 

“It’s better now.”

She starts to move slowly, gingerly. After only a few movements, she realizes she doesn’t need to be so careful. She guides Gendry’s hands to rest on her hips, and starts to speed up with a deep groan. 

“You’re beautiful like this,” he whispers, raising his hands to cup her breasts. She is, he thinks, hair hanging in her face, skin flushed all the way down to the top of her breast. 

Arya can’t quite process his words, so she turns her head to rest on his shoulder as she moves. 

None of this quite fits anything she expected, not the flowery songs Sansa used to coo over, not the way Theon used to talk about fucking whores, not even quite the nebulous image of her mother and father’s happy marriage. 

Gendry’s below her, breathing in unison. He tries to grab a nipple between his lips. She’s still somehow surprised how good his cock feels inside her, hard and warm, and how solid and strong he feels underneath her. 

He moves his hands up to the backs of her shoulders, and squeezes her closer to him, kissing her softly on the mouth.

“I’m too close again.” he mutters, 

Arya nods, and doubles down, sinking onto him harder and faster, and reaching between them to touch herself until she feels her muscles contracting around him again, just as his head collapses onto her shoulder and he spills inside her.

Once their breathing slows, she retrieves one of the other cloths by the basin, and notices the table has also been set with two mugs of water and a tray of wintercakes. 

It’s strange. The outside world had seemed to disappear. She passes Gendry a cake before running the cloth between her legs. 

The thin red streak along it when she brings it away from herself makes her scoff. They had nothing to prove to anyone but each other. 

“It seems,” Arya says, returning to the bed and making a spot for herself under one of Gendry’s arms, “That the two of us make quite a team.”

Gendry smiles. 

“That’s a good word for it,” he says, “A team. We’ll need that when we have to face the world tomorrow.”

“Ugh,” Arya mumbles, turning to kiss him once, “Can’t we just stay here?”

Gendry pulls his arm tighter, so she’s rolled half on top of him. 

“Sounds good to me,” he mumbles sleepily, “But first, a nap.”

Arya nods, half drifted off herself. 

They wake, and their hands reach for each other twice more that night, and once more in the morning, sheets rustling in the early dawn’s light. 

When they dress in the morning, and move to go face the rest of Winterfell, Arya opens the door to find only Sansa and Margaery sleeping outside the door. 

Margaery wakes at the movement. 

“Sansa chased as many of the others off as she could,” she mumbles sleepily. 

Arya smiles. 

“Tell her thank you.”

“I should say congratulations,” she continues, “I’ve been to a lot of weddings, I don’t think I’ve heard that much laughter come out of a bridal chamber before.”

Arya smiles even wider.

She nods her head in Sansa’s direction. 

“Does she make you laugh like that?”

Margaery ducks her head, and Arya lets her be. 

Her and Gendry leave, and Arya faces the morning with her head held high, that she, wild Arya Stark, had managed to do something properly. 

One by one, the guests begin to leave. Arya squeezes Sansa tight. She’s not quite sure exactly what happened, but Margaery is leaving with her, with no words of a betrothal. 

She hugs Jon goodbye too, before he leaves for the Wall again. He doesn’t have to ask her anything, not after she’d caught his eyes on her that morning at breakfast, when Gendry had been idly playing with her hair and she had had a stupid smile on her face. 

Over the next days, their things are packed up and they prepare to leave for King’s Landing again. 

“Do we really have to go?’ Gendry whines the morning of, “I fucking hated King’s Landing, even if I only got to see the slummy parts.”

“The nice parts were no better,” Arya assures him. She holds his hand as they make their way out to where Ned has the rest of the party waiting to leave. 

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” she says, brightening, “It takes like a month to get there by the Kingsroad. Maybe by the time we get there, it’ll be gone.”

Gendry looks at her oddly. 

“How?”

“Maybe a cache of the Mad King’s wildfire will randomly explode. Maybe a lost Targaryen will come and demand their throne back. Maybe a kraken will rise from the sea and attack the place.”

Gendry laughs, and Arya’s chest fills up with warmth. She knows what to call this feeling, but she won’t. She’s not ready yet, but someday she’ll be ready to say it. 

“Whatever we find there, we’ll face it together,” she assures him, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. Gendry looks down at her, and her heart skips a beat when she wonders if he’ll be the one to say it first. 

“Yea. Like you said, we’re a team.”

Arya nods, and there’s a yell from the others, so they go to find their mounts, ride south, and face the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Just in case anyone doesn't recognize the source of the title ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLcrxhE_xQw)


End file.
